My Blog

Posts for: December, 2015

Although dental disease prevention has made great strides over the last century, tooth decay and periodontal (gum) disease continue to pose a major health threat. People who’ve lost all of their teeth (edentulism) or most of them suffer the most with adverse effects on their overall health, function and appearance.

Removable dentures have been the traditional and most affordable means to treat edentulism. But even with material and construction advances in recent years, dentures can still lose their fit over time as the bone in the jaw shrinks. This happens because the bone no longer has the stimulus of natural teeth and older cells can’t be replenished at a healthy rate; the continuing compression of traditional dentures on the jaw’s bony ridges compounds the problem.

As the bone shrinks the dentures become loose and uncomfortable to wear. Among other results, this poor fit can drastically affect how you eat: studies of denture wearers have found a decrease in their diet’s nutritional value because they’re eating fewer vegetables or fibrous, “chewy” foods and more foods with refined carbohydrates and fats that are easier to eat but less nutritious.

There is an alternative, though, that might slow bone loss and provide a better long-term fit: an overdenture supported by dental implants. With this appliance, a few implants are strategically installed in the upper or lower jaw. Matched attachments securely fasten the denture to the implants. In this case, the implants not the jaw ridge and gums support the denture thereby preserving the bone.

If you’re healthy enough to undergo a tooth extraction, you should be able to handle implant surgery, a minor procedure usually performed with local anesthesia and with little to no discomfort afterward. It may even be possible to retrofit your current denture to work with the implants, but that will need to be determined during the planning stages.

Although more expensive than a traditional denture, overdentures are much more affordable than fixed restorations stabilized with implants. The difference, though, is the increase in your quality of life — for better nutrition, physical health and social confidence.

Magician Michel Grandinetti can levitate a 500-pound motorcycle, melt into a 7-foot-tall wall of solid steel, and make borrowed rings vanish and reappear baked inside bread. Yet the master illusionist admits to being in awe of the magic that dentists perform when it comes to transforming smiles. In fact, he told an interviewer that it’s “way more important magic than walking through a steel wall because you’re affecting people’s health… people’s confidence, and you’re really allowing people to… feel good about themselves.”

Michael speaks from experience. As a teenager, his own smile was enhanced through orthodontic treatment. Considering the career path he chose for himself — performing for multitudes both live and on TV — he calls wearing an orthodontic device (braces) to align his crooked teeth “life-changing.” He relies on his welcoming, slightly mischievous smile to welcome audiences and make the initial human connection.

A beautiful smile is definitely an asset regardless of whether you’re performing for thousands, passing another individual on a sidewalk or even, research suggests, interviewing for a job. Like Michael, however, some of us need a little help creating ours. If something about your teeth or gums is making you self-conscious and preventing you from smiling as broadly as you could be, we have plenty of solutions up our sleeve. Some of the most popular include:

Tooth Whitening. Professional whitening in the dental office achieves faster results than doing it yourself at home, but either approach can noticeably brighten your smile.

Bonding. A tooth-colored composite resin can be bonded to a tooth to replace missing tooth structure, such a chip.

Veneers. This is a hard, thin shell of tooth-colored material bonded to the front surface of a tooth to change its color, shape, size and/or length; mask dental imperfections like stains, cracks, or chips, and compensating for excessive gum tissue.

Crowns. Sometimes too much of a tooth is lost due to decay or trauma to support a veneer. Instead, capping it with a natural-looking porcelain crown can achieve the same types of improvements. A crown covers the entire tooth replacing more of its natural structure than a veneer does.